How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye

It took me two years to engineer my own layoff because I was concerned and didn’t know how. There were no resources on the market that could guide me to quit my job with money in my pocket. What was I supposed to say, “Hey Boss! If you give me $200,000 I’m outta here!” over coffee one morning?

What if I quit my job and my bank account goes dry in six months? What if I can’t find a new job in a new industry that I really love? What if my entrepreneurial endeavors fail miserably and some exogenous variable knocks me out for the count? What if I turn into a deadbeat with no more motivation to do anything again?

I didn’t hate my job, I just didn’t love it anymore like I did 13 years ago. Nothing is worth doing for an extended period of time if you don’t love it. Ten years in a row is the maximum amount of time I can truly commit to one occupation or firm with full enthusiasm. To go much longer would be unfair to my employer, to others who have a deeper hunger, and ultimately to myself.

I kept questioning what type of idiot would quit a good job in this type of economy? After a while, I started asking myself what type of idiot not to quit in this economy! Wages are down, profits are abysmal, and industries are going through multi-year consolidation phases that won’t be pleasant.

With no kids, a 18 year financial safety net, and a clear idea of what I want to do after my separation, I decided to initiate severance negotiation talks in October 2018 after creating a healthy stream of passive income over the past 13 years. I was so close, but couldn’t pull the trigger because I was STILL too unsure. What I needed was that one last kick in the pants to send me on my way to entrepreneurship.

Negotiating A Severance Was The Catalyst

Before quitting, I wanted to have that final catalyst that made leaving my job an absolute no-brainer. There are plenty of books that talk about how to land coveted jobs and make lots of money. However, there is nothing on the market that I know of that teaches us how to quit our jobs and make a small fortune in the process!

Unless you plan to work forever, there will be a backstop when you will want to do something else. They say the average person changes jobs seven times in their lifetimes. Gone are the days when we join a firm right out of college, work there for 40 years and retire with a pension. Instead, it’s a dog eat dog world out now and we’ve got to look out for ourselves or else risk getting blown up in the process. I was surprised to last 10+ years at the same firm.

In addition to the inevitability of change, a recent study showed that a 70%+ of the American workforce is unsatisfied with their jobs. 70%! What a waste of life!I’m not sure if the percentages are any better in Europe, Canada, Australia, Africa, or Asia. I doubt it.

How To Engineer Your Layoff Is Created

Back in 2010, I knew I had to start doing some research so I could make my exit. I wanted to educate myself as much as possible on my rights as an employee. I needed to discover my options so I could methodically formulate a plan to not have any regrets when I’m old and grey. The more I prepared for my own retirement, the more I realized I wanted to help other people do the same!

After two years of research, planning, coaching friends, and successfully engineering my own layoff, I present to you a comprehensive guide on how to profitably quit your job. The book serves to help people understand their rights as employees, offers step-by-step guidance so you won’t leave money on the table, and discusses the importance of building relationships to get what you want. I want to provide you that catalyst to motivate you to do whatever you truly desire!

How To Engineer Your Layoff is 40,000+ words, 150 pages long with 16 chapters, and provides you with the most comprehensive guide to profitably quitting your job. I set up the appropriate framework, identify the key players involved, highlight important Federal and State level resources to read, provide various strategies for maximizing your separation package, feature many examples of people who’ve successfully quit their jobs, and help you plan for a life after layoff.

I also write never revealed information on my own personal story. For those of you who have been following Financial Samurai since 2009, and plan to follow for several more years, you’ll understand why I write the way I do and take the stances that I take. Hopefully by better understanding my background, you will enjoy this site even more.

Make A Fortune Negotiating A Severance

What if I said you could make $8,000 on your way out the door? If you plan to leave your job anyway, getting $5,000 is like receiving an unexpected two round-trip tickets to Europe with a week of accommodation at a 5 star luxury hotel as a farewell present!

What if your company gave you $50,000 as part of your severance package? You could pay off all your credit card debt, and have a nice amount of savings to help care for your new baby!

And if you happen to received $100,000+ in severance as many of my friends in finance, technology, and consulting have received you might never need to work for anybody again!

There’s a lot of money out there, and the above amounts are from case studies included in the book. Each person wanted to do something else.

The woman who received $3,800 was tired of bartending and is now a full-time artist. The woman who received $48,000 was a marketing manager and is now a stay at home mom who never wants to go back to work again. The banker who received hundreds of thousands of dollars is now working for one of his clients.

There are detailed case studies in the book including an in depth look into the three above. I helped each person take the next step by advising them on a plan, and they are all better off financially and are happier because of their willingness to learn.

I have included a fascinating case study about using Family Medical Leave Act to negotiate a severance. I’ve also highlighted how I was able to help negotiate a severance for a high-performing employee.

Over the years, the #1 pushback I get from potential buyers is: why would my employer ever give me a severance if I’m a good employee? The answer is that the more valuable you are, the easier it is to negotiate a severance because you don’t want to just quit and leave them in the lurch.

Further, I highlight how one employee negotiated a severance because her employer didn’t want to be “put on blast” and sullied over social media. It’s a new age in 2019 and beyond folks. Employees have much more power than they think!

Do Not Quit Your Job Before Buying My Book

Please do not quit your job before you read How To Engineer Your Layoff. Please do not retire before you read my book either! You could be leaving some serious money on the table if you do not arm yourself with the knowledge and strategies in the book.

One friend quit his job of 10 years and learned a week later his entire department got laid off with two weeks of pay for every year worked plus a full year of healthcare insurance (COBRA)! In other words, he left two months of mandatory severance + 20 weeks of salary + $8,000 in health care premiums on the table. We’re talking over $70,000 in lost severance if he had only listened to my advice of sticking it out for several more months! Furthermore, he is ineligible for $21,600 a year in California unemployment benefits!

Everything I’ve written is based on my own experience of successfully engineering my layoff and helping others in the process. There is no fluff, nor are there any presumptions. Feel free to spend some time reading some of my most popular posts to get an idea of my writing and my habit of being as thorough as possible.

Engineering my own layoff put another six years of full living expenses in my bank account! Now the question is whether I should travel the world for 72 months fully paid or use the money to pay off a rental property or invest in my business!

Who Should Buy How To Engineer Your Layoff?

* Someone who is looking to change careers.
* Someone who wants to be an entrepreneur.
* Someone who is burnt out and just wants to take a long break.
* Someone who wants to retire early.
* Someone who doesn’t know how to get started.
* Someone who is afraid to blow themselves up in this delicate process.
* Someone who does not want to miss out on unemployment benefits because of quitting.
* Someone who realizes life speed accelerates and doesn’t want to have many regrets.
* Someone who wants insight into how the layoff process works at some firms.
* Someone who feels short-changed by their company.
* Someone who wants to preempt a layoff or firing.
* Someone who is a meticulous planner or needs someone to help them meticulously plan.
* Someone who wants to take control of their lives.
* Someone who wants to spend more time with their children.
* Someone who wants to spend more time with their aging parents.
* Someone who is interested in developing a deeper understanding of existing & future posts.
* Managers who want to prepare for the wave of employees looking to engineer their layoffs.
* Someone who believes the value of freedom, unemployment benefits, and a potential severance is far greater than the price of my book!

How To Engineer Your Layoff Will:

* Go through exercises to make sure you are ready to move on.
* Guide you on establishing a plan to switch careers or retire.
* Help you understand the players involved in engineering your layoff.
* Provide you with multiple strategies on how to maximize your severance package.
* Teach you how to leave your company without burning bridges.
* Explain how higher and lower performers are both able to engineer layoffs.
* Prepare you for a life after separation.
* Give you a much better fundamental understanding of current and future FS posts.
* Entertain and motivate you by sharing success stories.
* Allow you to collect thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits if you are laid off.
* Potentially allow you to walk away with a healthy severance package.
* Save you precious time in figuring out how to lead your new life!

Promotion special – For a limited time only enter coupon code “saveten” in your shopping cart to get $10 off instantly! If you run a business or are a sole-proprietor or freelancer, you should be able to deduct the cost of purchase.

I arm readers with the knowledge, skills, and courage to take that leap of faith as I have done. Not a day goes by where I’m not thankful for being able to negotiate a severance that equaled five years of comfortable living expenses. The financial runway was huge for me to patiently build Financial Samurai without having to worry about revenue.

When you engineer your layoff with a nice severance package, you will walk away feeling like a winner. Thanks for your support and congratulations for taking the next step closer to freedom!

About the Author: Sam started Financial Samurai in 2009 as a way to make sense of the financial crisis. He proceeded to spend the next 13 years after attending The College of William & Mary and UC Berkeley for b-school working at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. He owns properties in San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, and Honolulu and has $810,000 invested in real estate crowdfunding. In 2012, Sam was able to retire at the age of 34 largely due to his investments that now generate roughly $220,000 a year in passive income, partly thanks to his investments in real estate crowdfunding. He spends time playing tennis, hanging out with family, consulting for leading fintech companies and writing online to help others achieve financial freedom.

Author Bio: Sam started Financial Samurai in 2009 to help people achieve financial freedom sooner, rather than later. He spent 13 years working in investment banking, earned his MBA from UC Berkeley, and retired at age 34 in San Francisco.

Sam’s favorite free financial tool he’s been using since 2012 to manage his net worth is Personal Capital. Every quarter, Sam runs his investments through their free Retirement Planner and Investment Checkup tool to make sure he stays financially free, forever. It’s free and easy to use.

For investing opportunities in 2019, Sam is most interested in investing in the heartland of America through real estate crowdfunding. Property valuations are much cheaper and net rental yields are much higher. There is a demographic trend towards moving away from higher cost areas of the country to lower cost areas thanks to technology.

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Comments

Awesome!! Congrats Sam! I am so thrilled that you launched your book and am honored to have been involved in helping you edit it. What an insightful and eye opening book and I learned so much in the process. I have a goal to leave my day job and become a full time entrepreneur in 3 years and feel so empowered after reading your book.

I think it’s fantastic you were able to engineer your layoff and are now following your passions full time. I am in a good spot being a part time entrepreneur right now but I’m definitely looking forward to engineering my exit and making the most of things. Thanks for teaching me so many things!

Thank you Sydney! I’m excited that you’ve read the book and will be using the framework I’ve laid out to engineer your own layoff in 3 years time!

Three years is a fantastic runway to save, invest, and plan. I’m sure if you implement some of the strategies I’ve discussed, theres no doubt you’ll be able to walk away with something nice. It feels so good to have that extra cherry on top!

One of the key reasons why I wrote this book is that employees surprisingly do not know their rights. Employees are intimidated by their managers and their companies. As a result, they leave a lot of money on the table when they eventually leave. Everybody eventually leaves. It just depends on how much one leaves with!

Appreciate it Mike! I wanted to put together the highest quality resource I could, given there is no resource on the market that teaches us how to profitably quit our jobs and transition into an “encore career” or into early retirement.

It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling to be able to successfully engineer a separation package that can cover a full six years of living expenses when I didn’t even need it either due to my savings. I hope everyone who wants to leave is able to engineer some sort of separation package!

Congrats! Too bad you told everyone it took you two years to write. In some aspects, telling people that you retired less than a week ago and now wrote a 100 page book would be an amazing feat. ;) haha. But, in all seriousness, this looks like a great resource. Are you having it printed or working with a traditional publisher as well?

Congratulations on your book. Seems like only minutes ago I read that you were writing one and pow–here it is. Your energy level knocks me out. Every time I turn around you have a new completed project. If you could market your energetic DNA you’d make buckets…

Thanks Pat. I figure, might as well work hard while I still have the energy right? Every day is so exciting because a full 6 hours passes where things pile up and I’m excited to see what happened over night.

I always try to be methodical and look at every angle possible before doing something. Hope all is well!

No problem Bryan! $38 is less than $21,600 a year in annual unemployment benefits in California, less than health care an employer pays as part of a severance, and certainly less than the value of one’s separation package.

Perhaps see if you can negotiate your terms yourself in 2 months with your managers and HR first. And if it doesn’t go down well, then buy the book. And if it goes well, you just saved yourself $38 bucks!

Bryan:
Consider the value offered, before balking at the price. I once bought a 50-page book at $150, and what I learned from it made me tens of thousands. Sure most eBooks are $7.99, but what is in them that you don’t already know. This is highly specialized knowledge and experience being shared. If you are anticipating a big change in two months, isn’t it worth an investment to be prepared enough to do it right?

Thanks Larry. In good times, people definitely want to move around more. However, as I write in my post, it’s the bad times that make the opportunity cost the lowest and best time to make a move for me! Each person’s case is different.

Congrats on the book launch! Impressive work. Curious how you chose your price point. During the Great Recession I did engineer a severance package myself to buy me some time as I looked for my next gig. We should compare notes!

i would love to read this book and will certainly look into picking it up in here in a few weeks.. i don’t recall ever seeing a book of this kind anywhere..

leaving a job is certainly a very tense time, and you are correct in stating that most folks don’t know their rights. the last time that i switched jobs, i felt that i was truly at the mercy of my employer..

One of the main reasons why I wrote the book was to EMPOWER the people. It’s David vs. Goliath where our employers have more capital, and more personnel (HR, Managers, Lawyers) looking out for their own reputation/interests. It’s understandable and is what it is. When we know our rights, we know our value.

I will allocate $38 of my budget to this in the near future! Sam, you are an inspiration to us all! And this is a great way to empower more employees, especially when they feel like the employer has all the power.I’m especially excited for the chapters on getting a severence even when you have another job lined up!

I don’t know if I’d ever need it, but I’ll be sure to let other folks know about it. In fact, I’d love to be an affiliate. You’re going to need a lot of help promoting this thing. With the number of people that you’ve helped over the past two years, I’m sure that many of them would gladly put a 125×125 banner somewhere on their site for you, even if they don’t get paid….

Your book will do well Sam for one simple reason. There are many who find no way to quit due to the financial risk involved. I am assuming that you are showing them how to negotiate enough dough before turning the keys back to the master. Congrats!

I have one idea or suggestion. You may want to let people read one chapter FREE that can excite them to buy the book.

Congrats Sam, great help and timing for my personal landscape right now. I couldn’t stop reading until I finished it.

I want suggest you share the index or a simplified table of content, many guys I know purchase their ebooks based on that information. When first saw this post I was looking for it before pushing the buy button I even started to write you to ask for it, but being a long time reader of your blog already knew the kind of content you publish.

I am very interested in your website. It s a great resource and testimonial.

I am about to be layed off after what I believe was a manager dirty trick to put me on a PIP for 3 months. his reports are misrepresenting the efforts and achievements during the PIP period.
On top of that he did not plan the mid year reviews as per the corporate policy and all his advise year long were vague, not documented, positif thumb up good job, etc …
What is your advise for this situation ?
Is there a case for a claim and negotiation ?

I’m reading chapter 4 “Time for that Heart to Heart with your Boss”. Perhaps I haven’t read far enough in the book, but the conversation suggested seems like you are just putting in notice. It doesn’t mention how to broach requesting severance. If I had that conversation I’m pretty sure my boss would say “we are so sorry to see you go” and not understand that I am asking for something. Could you please elaborate a bit on this point?

Thanks for buying my book. You talk to your boss when you’ve made up your mind that you want to go, BUT you don’t say it outright. Instead, the meeting with your boss is to:

* Feel him/her out regarding plans for the future
* Discuss various options you may have (sabbatical, relocation, different role)
* Plant the seed of doubt (sabbatical, extended paid time off, family medical leave)
* Reveal about your spouse’s plans to do something new, family issues, etc.
* Finally come to a heart-to-heart on next steps to take

I’m just curious when you do manage to successfully obtain a severance package is there any stipulations that bar you from suing them in the future. Recently came to my attention my company is violating wages for OT.

Hi Sam, I’m probably two years out from the point where I can tell my employer that I won’t mind being on the next round of layoffs. The maximum regular amount of layoff pay tops out at 6 months salary. Once, they offered 10 months, but that was unique. During our 2005-2009 bankruptcy, I think they even welshed on the 6 months for many people.

I’m not asking you to give me all the info from your “Engineer Your Layoff”…but is there info in there that would point me towards getting more than the 6 months that everyone gets who’s been here more than 25 years? I can’t imagine how to make the bureaucracy do that, but if there are some strategies, I’ll give it a go.

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[…] How to Engineer Your Layoff, written by Sam from Financial Samurai, discusses how the right severance package can soften the blow of a job loss and provide a way for you to prepare for your next steps. […]

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